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Today, Jay Z gave the signal to dozens of music's top artists, asking them to reveal their true colors in a campaign to deliver hidden, coded messages across the airwaves. No, it's not an Illuminati takeover of pop music. It's the U.S. launch of Jay Z's new higher-end streaming service, Tidal. Jay Z made the announcement with a promo video just weeks after noting his purchase of the service as part of acquiring the Swedish firm Aspiro, Tidal's parent company. In this splashy rollout campaign, he enlisted peers like Kanye West, Jack White, Arcade Fire, Daft Punk, Madonna, Coldplay and Beyonce to show support by changing their varied...

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Today, Jay Z gave the signal to dozens of music's top artists, asking them to reveal their true colors in a campaign to deliver hidden, coded messages across the airwaves.
No, it's not an Illuminati takeover of pop music. It's the U.S....

This past award season saw “Boyhood” star Ethan Hawke talking about universal human concerns in press appearances that — as he liked to joke — had him “playing Richard Linklater."
It turns out Hawke had also quietly been getting behind the camera to...

For the first time in eight years, UK reggae and pop ensemble UB40 hits the road on a North American tour that includes a fall stop in Las Vegas. Ali Campbell, Astro and Mickey Virtue along with their seven-piece band play The Joint at...

Singer-songwriter John Hiatt was onstage several years ago at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica when he paused to introduce a new song to the audience.
"The trick with a new song," said Hiatt, a songwriting veteran whose work has been...

The American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre on Sunday screens Sam Peckinpah's 1973 western, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," starring Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn and Bob Dylan. The film's production was turbulent with the director's...

In these times of rampant food mash-ups -- think cronuts and cruffins -- it is perhaps not so surprising that “The Voice” did a little mashing up of its own on Monday, smooshing together the final night of the blind auditions and the first batch of battle...

Have a hit, get a writ.
That music-industry axiom is one way to understand the legal battle between Marvin Gaye's heirs and two recent chart-toppers, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. The Gaye family accused Thicke and Williams of plagiarizing one of...

Occasionally, for reasons of fate or coincidence, sounds from the past converge in the present at key moments.
Consider the Staple Singers, whose gospel recordings starting in the early 1960s carried them through the next four decades and included...

True to form, Kelly Clarkson minced no words in a phone call the other day from her home in Nashville.
But rather than handing it to some no-good guy — as she's done in brutally frank hit singles like "Since U Been Gone" and "Stronger...

If you need testimony that Rhiannon Giddens is a talent to watch in 2015, listen to Bonnie Raitt.
Roughly a year ago, Raitt was sitting upstairs at the Troubadour in West Hollywood before performing at the Americana Music Assn.'s annual pre-Grammy Awards...

Jamie Cullum doesn't want anybody to get the wrong idea about his new album, "Interlude."
A British singer and piano player who emerged in the early 2000s as a precocious, messy-haired jazz star, Cullum spent the next decade inching ever closer...

Onstage, the Grammy Awards show on Sunday will once again be a picture of diversity. In one of the most anticipated performances of the evening, Paul McCartney will share the stage with Rihanna and Kanye West.
When it comes to handing out the major...

The debut solo album from Carolina Chocolate Drops singer Rhiannon Giddens, spotlighted in our year-end report on artists to watch in 2015, arrives Tuesday, and it is Giddens’ personalized salute to women artists who influenced her eclectic journey in...

The choruses and melodies honored during Sunday's 57th Grammy Awards at the Staples Center are destined to be played at high-school class reunions until at least 2065, even if by then global warming will have rendered such gatherings oceanic parties.
...

A disembodied voice echoed through the cavernous expanse of Staples Center on Thursday, booming the phrase "Cello mike — one, two, three, four…." And then the sound of a piano floated through the arena, telegraphing the opening for Annie...

Jhene Aiko, her agent and her manager are huddled together on a recent afternoon going over upcoming gigs for the buzzing alternative-R&B star.
The Los Angeles native is in the middle of a victory lap for a breakout year that included her first hit...

Two historic electric guitar prototypes will go up for auction next month in New York, including the original “Black Beauty” model of Gibson’s Les Paul guitar that became one of the most widely used instruments in rock ‘n’ roll.
The Black Beauty guitar...

As written, the Grammy category of best historical album sounds so stodgy, suggestive of a Ken Burns documentary filled with black-and-white photos panned left to right and a title-line gradually coming into focus.
But rather than conjuring footnoted...

Lady Gaga showed up Thursday at Staples Center in a dazzling strapless gold lame cocktail dress and matching iridescent gold 4-inch high heels, her bleach blond hair swept smoothly over one shoulder as she took the stage with her recent duet partner,...